


Between the Shadow and the Soul

by DreamsAtDusk



Category: The Grisha Trilogy - Leigh Bardugo
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-18
Updated: 2016-06-18
Packaged: 2018-07-15 21:37:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,274
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7239397
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DreamsAtDusk/pseuds/DreamsAtDusk
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alarkling-focused responses to prompts, under 1000 words.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Candles

It was the macro expressions of power that tended to captivate people.  The Cut, shearing through enemy lines.  Mass conflagrations.  Waves of sunlight so brilliant they were blinding.  But over time, Alina had come to find the subtleties just as alluring, if not more so.  Age had taught her that fine control was a scarcer quantity than brute force.  Nor was such a consideration constrained to Grisha abilities.

And so.  She pulled threads of light tighter and tighter, until they were little more than a pin shaft in thickness.  The light licked the wick of a candle and it slowly caught aflame.  Then another did, and another.  Alina Starkov sat with her only light in the darkness these candles and she felt relief.

It was some time later, the sweet scent of wax drifting in the air about her, that she heard footsteps.  Knew without looking that he stood in the doorway, leaning lightly on the frame after a moment.

“The electric lighting is so garish,” she said finally.  “Sometimes it gets to me more than others.”

And later yet, she extended her hand behind her, still not looking.  She felt long fingers close around her palm, and tugged.

They sat in silence watching the candles burn, until Alina blinked her eyes to clear halos of light from her vision, and turned.  “Is that why the Little Palace felt like it came from a different time?  Because you could?”  She still sometimes spoke before she really thought it through:  a case in point, here.

Aleksander did not respond straight away, but she could tell from the shift of his expression that he would and, by the way his eyes moved as he considered, that it would not be terse.

“That suggests an effort to preserve. Rather than…imagine.”  His lips compressed as if he was not overly fond of his own choice of word.  She was on the verge of delivering a dig about the dubiousness of an imagining involving herring - requisite haranguing to be delivered at regular intervals ever since she had learned, long ago now, that he actually liked the vile substance.  But the thought reminded her of morning pastries and that reminded her of Genya, even after all of this time.  It stopped her, just long enough.

He let out a breath that was trying to pretend it was not really a sigh, and leaned back.  “Your questions sometimes.”  Alina smiled and said nothing.

“It’s not always about stopping change.  Sometimes it’s about changing…everything.”

He fell silent and it lingered this time, the sight of wax pooling gently on the table holding his grey eyes and tongue both.  But she understood.


	2. Humming

It is a low, throaty sound, skipping erratically through the tunes of contemporary ballads and drinking songs, such things as soldiers might know. She hums to herself, yet never where he might hear it; silence takes the stage if she thinks that he is near. And so, he grows sly in turn, stealing close to listen - why he does it, even he could not say.

The floor creaks ever so faintly this time and he freezes where he is, relaxing only when she does not falter.

Then, it changes - to the notes of a song very old indeed, reminding him of long ago, of being younger and thinking he knew what hope might be - and on either side of the door that separates them, they both smile the faintest of smiles.


	3. Ten Sentences (and Then Some)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This meme focused on a one sentence response for various words; I received multiple prompts for some.

**1\. Angst**

“ _No._ You can’t be thinking to…he’s dead and his body is gone!” Alina whispered in horror, as irritation, anger…a flicker of pain, as she thought she had seen in that deserted barn months and months ago? passed over his face, but the Darkling only sighed wearily and took the book back from her.

**2\. AU**

They flocked to the Illusionists’ tent in droves to watch mysteries sculpted of light and shadow, their gazes fixed raptly upon the woman with hair of starlight, and straining in vain to glimpse the other artist, invisible in darkness.

*

Her hand tightened on Aleksander’s as they stared towards the squalid camp in the distance, where behind huge, metallic sentinels, iron fences, and layers of artillery, Baghra was somewhere to be found - they hoped.

**3\. Crack**

“Your _kefta_ gave me the idea,” she said, ignoring the flat look he shot her with a practiced serenity, as she placed the purring bundle of fur firmly in his arms, “Black is so nice and uniform - we’ll just have a black cat named Vanya, all the time:  the perfect Grisha pet.”

*

“Stop doing that with the _nichevo'ya_ \- the ambassador thinks the palace is haunted!” Alina hissed at him, as the Darkling leaned back in his chair and laughed until his eyes teared up.

_(More was requested on this one, so: )_

A smirk still pulled at his mouth even afterwards, though his voice was solemn as he said, “Certain talents are better suited to particular ventures than others.  Sun summoning is unarguably impressive.  But not particularly subtle.  Darkness on the other hand… ."  He shrugged elegantly.

Alina’s eyebrow described a perfect arch…and then, she smiled.  Sweetly.  "You’re right.  It’s going to be _not subtle at all_ when a giant halo of light forms around your head the next time something like that happens in public.”

His pout was very faint, but sensitized to his understated ways as she was, the _tsaritsa_ wasted no time in swatting at him with a sheaf of papers from the desk.

**4\. Future fic**

They would meet where there were none to see, in deep primal forests or forgotten caves, and revel in the release of weaving their powers together - in the world beyond, it was forgotten what Grisha were and as far as Alina Starkov and Aleksander Morozova knew, they were the last.

*

“And what happens when the first _otkazat’sya_ child is born?  You know it will happen.” Alina returns, staring down the scowl he had leveled at her for not promptly agreeing wholeheartedly with his idea of settling one of the terraformed planets with Grisha.

**5\. First Time**

"Isolated cabins in the woods it is then,” he commented with an amused eyebrow raise, as Alina failed to hold back a laugh with the hands that covered her face, the sunrise staining her cheeks a fitting match to the light that radiated from her head to toe.

**6\. Fluff**

Her eyelids flickered with surprise in the darkness of the little shack, as she felt the lightest of touches run down her hair and then repeat its path.

**7\. Humor**

The Darkling narrowing his eyes with a retaliatory glint was not something to take lightly, particularly and most especially when the occasion was one having just dislodged a pine tree’s worth of snow atop his head; Alina elected for the better part of valor and darted up a bank at full speed.

**8\. Hurt/Comfort**

He had warned her, in the beginning, but had then kept silent on the matter - he had not left though and now, as she wept beside a grave she had feared for decades to see, he did not pull away when she reached up for his hand.

**9\. Smut**

The heat of his tongue caused her to arch up, shivering as his breath rippled over her skin in near-silent laughter.

**10\. UST**

The fact that her heart jumped every time the wind whispered through pine needles, as she took her turn in the hot spring they had happened across, owed itself to two very different causes: hoping that it was not him and at the same time, wondering what would happen if it was.


End file.
